Hot Garbage

The following Monday, the fire during the homecoming dance was the talk of Hickson High while Haylee’s fight with Madison Lambert was relegated to just another crazy homecoming side story. I walked around the school with my head held high and felt like an honest-to-God do-gooder, a feeling I’ll admit I hadn’t felt in a long time, and it was if the whole world smiled upon me. I was Good Mack the Good Brother, Even If His Sister Must Never Ever Know About His Secret Arson Career Because She Would Totally Fucking Tell Dad.

This warm and fuzzy feeling lasted until twenty minutes into my afternoon shift at the hardware store, when Ox Haggerton came in while I was facing the shelves. I’d been daydreaming about Fahrenheit 451 and how weird that would be, to get paid to burn books, and I didn’t notice Haggerton until he was right on top of me, scowling and smelling like lighter fluid. He looked even older and more puckered than I remembered, though his eyes were just as red and angry.

“Chainsaws,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Where are your chainsaws?”

“Oh,” I said, wiping my palms on my jeans. “Sure. Let me show you.”

I took him to the shelves at the back of the store where we kept the heavy duty stuff. I pointed out the only chainsaw we kept in stock.

“That’s all you’ve got? One goddamn chainsaw?”

“Yes, but we can order any kind you’d like. We don’t sell a lot—”

“Fuck ordering,” Ox said. “If you don’t have it on your shelf I don’t want to fucking see it.”

He picked up the chainsaw and raised it into the air for inspection. His arms were knotted with tight little old man muscles, stored strength he’d probably gained from a lifetime of adding to the woodpile I’d burned down three weeks before. I waited while he turned the chainsaw over and ran his thumb along the teeth of the cutting chain, frowning like it was a piece of trash he’d found in his backyard.

“This is it? This is all you’ve got?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, fighting a strong urge to walk off and hide in my boss’s office. Nobody spoke for a moment and the store’s fluorescent lights hummed above us, sounding as demonic as ever.

“I guess it’ll do,” Ox said, lowering the chainsaw and looking at me. “Hey. I remember you. You’re George Hedley’s grandson.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You still working at the Legion?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re a busy little shit, aren’t you?”

A vision of Haggerton’s woodpile engulfed in glorious flame suddenly filled my mind for one flashing second, as real as if I was standing in front of it again.

“Yes, sir,” I said. “I try to keep busy.”

After Big Greg and I closed the store I came home to find the house empty and dim. Dad and Haylee were in Thorndale at her first therapy session, which was part of her deal with the school to avoid suspension for the homecoming fight. The other part of the deal was for Haylee to personally apologize to Madison Lambert herself, which must have nearly made my sister’s head explode.

I let Chompy out of his kennel and took him outside for a pee. Strong winds had turned the woods behind our house into a big, thrashing mosh pit and the effect was a little unnerving.

“What do you think, Chompy? Is Big Foot hiding out there? Watching us, waiting for signs of weakness?”

The beast snatched a fluttering leaf out of the air and devoured it. I led him into the small ravine and up the opposite side to the train tracks. I looked away while he did his business on the rails, staring at the forest’s autumn leaves until the colors blurred together. The ground trembled beneath my feet.

“Hey. You feel that?”

The train whistled to announce its approach as I led Chompy back to the ravine’s floor. The dog started running back and forth in spastic ecstasy, lunging against his leash and barking like a madman. I dug in my heels and fought an urge to let go and see if the beast would actually charge. Haylee would laugh, I thought. She’d laugh to see her simpleton pooch giving me such a hard time. She’d laugh if she could laugh, if the Dark Ferret of Sadness That Whispered Sorrow Into Her Ear allowed her to recognize the comedy inherent in a skinny, tall guy trying to rein in a worked-up dog.

“Here it comes, dummy,” I shouted. “Get ready.”

The train’s engine emerged thunderously from the woods, its single headlight bright in the fading daylight. Chompy went still, as if understanding his foolishness, and the engine disappeared back into the woods, quick as that. Three minutes of freight cars came rolling behind it, throwing sparks along the rails. Most of the cars carried sealed shipping containers, though a few tank cars and old-school boxcars were thrown into the mix to keep it interesting. It was the boxcars I’d liked best when I was kid. Many was the time I’d imagined stuffing a backpack full of ham sandwiches, sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night, and crossing the little ravine. I’d wait patiently for the next train, sprint alongside it when it finally arrived, and effortlessly leap into the first available boxcar. I’d already be long gone by the time my parents woke up in the morning, three or four hundred miles away. They’d cry their eyes out they’d miss me so much. The whole damn town would cry.

The last cars rolled past. The show was over. Chompy gave one last sharp bark at the woods and looked at me.

“What?”

The dog eyed my car, which was sitting in the driveway. I gave a martyr’s sigh and headed up the ravine. Chompy scrambled to catch up, paused to press happily against my side, and then raced ahead to the car. I opened the back door and the beast leapt inside, turning around twice in the back seat before happily settling down, pink tongue lolling. I went around to the driver’s side and started the engine, pulling out of the driveway slowly so as not to make a racket. We rumbled through the autumn night and Chompy slid around in the back seat, shifting with the abrupt turns like a panting gym bag. I rolled down my window and we turned onto the highway, just two saucy fuckers headed out for a night on the prowl.

We drove beyond town. I was sick of all the same old houses, the same old streets. Driving faster, on an actual highway, at least provided the illusion of novelty. At seventy miles per hour anything could appear in the Oldsmobile’s headlights, at any minute. Bears, vampires, a zombie Charles Bukowski; I’d be happy with anything beyond the usual smorgasbord of Balrog County roadkill.

We drove for a half hour before I noticed Chompy yawning in the rearview mirror.

“What? A free car ride isn’t good enough for you?”

The beast stared back at me, his eyes dark and crazed.

“Ah,” I said. “I know where you want to go.”

I slowed the car down, whipped a U-turn, and headed in the opposite direction. Ten minutes later and the air had turned ripe with the smell of skunky garbage and cardboard, causing Chompy to perk up and stick his head out the window. We drove past the county landfill’s entrance and parked discreetly a half-mile down the road, near the rear section of the landfill’s fence line. Chompy leapt out of the back seat and started to immediately strain at his leash, somehow gagging and eagerly panting at the same time.

“All right, all right.”

The landfill was lit by sodium lamps, but since it was heaped with mounded trash it was impossible to get a clear sightline of anything. Chompy and I might as well have been on the other side of the moon as far as the Fill’s night watchman was concerned, and that’s the way I liked it. We walked along the rear fence, found the same weak spot known to every no-good teenager in Hickson, and tunneled through to the other side, where the smell of garbage was even stronger.

Chompy bounded from trashy heap to trashy heap, smelling and lifting his leg and smelling some more, so ecstatic I thought his head might explode in a spray of feathers. I shook my head at his exuberance and plugged my nose.

“So you like this locale, sire? Is it to your liking?”

Chompy tore into what looked like a bag of Chinese leftovers, spraying dirty lo mein noodles everywhere. I gave him as much length on the leash as possible, trying to avoid the noodle spray zone. I noticed an interesting heap rising a good twenty feet into the air.

“Holy hell, Chompy. Would you look at that.”

I pulled the snorting beast along and examined the lofty heap more closely. It was mostly plastic trash bags bursting with clothes and towels. I pulled out a few T-shirts and sweaters but I couldn’t find anything wrong with any of them. It was just a big old heap of discarded clothes, rising to the heavens.

I pulled my lighter out of my pocket and twirled it in my fingers. The firebug woke up and flexed its fiery muscles.

This was it.

This was next level shit right here.

Chompy pulled me backward, straining to return to the more food-based trash. I yanked the leash in reply and the beast writhed on his tether. “You had your turn, beastie. Time for papa to have some fun.”

I dug out a hand towel. It was dry and pleasantly coarse. I thumbed the lighter, lit one small corner of the towel, and watched the flame grow and creep across its surface. The firebug started to dance, gyrating to a mad antediluvian beat, and I flung the towel at the tower’s base. Chompy barked, not digging the fire, and I allowed him to pull me back to the food trash. While the tower fire slowly smoldered, then spread, Chompy enjoyed more nasty snacks and the night buzzed with energy.

We were all feeding. We were all getting fed.